1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laminating apparatus in which a sheet is fed from each of a pair of sheet rolls and a medium such as a paper, a document, a card is sandwiched between the fed sheets to produce a laminate. In particular, the present invention relates to a laminating apparatus which performs a slack removal operation in the minimum area required to remove slack generated in the sheets unreeled from the sheet rolls, so that the medium can be laminated to produce an aesthetic laminate without any wrinkles between the sheets and the medium.
Furthermore, the present invention relates to a laminating apparatus capable of producing a laminate by coating a medium such as a document, a card, and the like with coating materials such as a synthetic resin film and the like and, particularly, to a laminating apparatus capable of simplifying the steps of producing a laminate to suppress labors or loads exerted on a user.
2. Description of Related Art
Laminating apparatus are mainly classified under the following types: one is a hot laminating type of unreeling two sheets from a pair of sheet rolls, sandwiching a medium such as a card between the fed sheets, and hot-pressing them to produce a laminate; and another is a cold laminating type of unreeling two sheets from a pair of sheet rolls, at least one or both of the sheets being applied with an adhesive, and adhesively sandwiching a medium such as a card between the fed sheets to produce a laminate.
Between the above two types, the latter cold type of laminating apparatus is becoming in common use because it needs no heating means such as a hot roller and thus it is easy to handle.
Such the cold type of laminating apparatus is exemplified in FIGS. 18A, 18B and 19. In those drawings, a laminating apparatus 100 is basically configured by a medium supply area A, a sheet supply area B, a laminate formation area C, and a cutting area D. Specifically, the medium supply area A includes a feed tray 102 for holding thereon media 101 such as documents, cards, etc. to be supplied into the apparatus. The sheet supply area B includes a pair of sheet rolls 105, 106 for feeding sheets 103, 104 respectively used to laminate the medium 101. The laminate formation area C includes a pair of nip rollers 107, 108 for transporting the medium 101 fed from the medium supply area A in a Y-axis direction while laminating it between the sheets 103, 104 supplied from the sheet supply area B. The laminate 109 formed of the medium 110 and the sheets 103, 104 laminating the medium 110 therebetween is send out from the lamination processing area C in a Y-axis direction. The cutting area D includes a lateral cutter blade 110 for cutting the laminate 109 along the end edge in a width direction (X-axis direction) thereof perpendicular to the send-out direction (Y-axis direction).
The sheet supply area B is constructed of a sheet cassette 111 in which an upper roll 105 comprising a non-adhesive sheet 103 made of a synthetic region film such as a polyethylene terephthalate film (which is referred to as PET film hereinafter) and a lower roll 106 comprising an adhesive sheet 104 made of a PET film applied with an adhesive on one surface thereof so that the sheet 104 is rolled with the adhesive face inside. The rolls 105, 106 are rotatably mounted in the sheet cassette 111. The non-adhesive sheet 103 unreeled from the upper roll 105 and the adhesive sheet 104 unreeled from the lower roll 106 are supplied together to the laminate formation area C while the adhesive face of the sheet 104 is opposite to the sheet 103.
The feed tray 102 has a guide plate 112 for guiding the medium 101 to a nip position between the nip rollers 107, 209. The guide plate 112 is placed on the tray 102 at the end part thereof as shown in FIG. 19. The feed tray 102 is mounted to a main unit 113 so that the guiding portion defined by the guide plate 112 is inserted between the upper and lower sheet rolls 105 and 106 in the sheet cassette 111 mounted in the main unit 113.
The lateral cutter blade 110 is slidable supported on a bar 114 laid across the width of the main unit 113 at the side to which the laminate 109 is transported by the nip rollers 107, 108 as shown in FIGS. 18A and 18B and 19. When an arbitrary portion of the laminate 109 to be cut is advanced to the blade position, the blade 110 may be slid in the width (X-axis) direction to cut the laminate 109 along the end edge in the width direction at an arbitrary position in the send-out direction (Y-axis direction).
The laminating apparatus 100 constructed as above is used in the following manner. At first, when the medium 101 such as a card placed on the feed tray 102 is pushed forward, the front end of the medium 101 is guided to between the non-adhesive sheet 103 and the adhesive sheet 104 unreeled from the upper and lower rolls 105 and 106 respectively and to a nip position between the nip rollers 107 and 108.
At this time, when a handle 115 is attached to a side wall of the main unit 113 is rotated, the medium 101 is transported together with the sheets 103 and 104 into between the nip rollers 107 and 108 while laminating them, and sent out as the laminate 109. Thereafter, the laminate 109 is cut by means of the lateral cutter blade 110 in the width direction, thus providing a resultant laminate 109 constructed of the medium 101 whose both surfaces are covered by the sheets 103 and 104.
Meanwhile, when the non-adhesive sheet 103 and the adhesive sheet 104 are unreeled from the upper and lower rolls 105 and 106 respectively in the sheet cassette 111 used in the above-mentioned laminating apparatus 100 in the prior art, the sheets 103, 104 may have slack.
The rotation of the handle 115 is in direct conjunction with the rotation of the nip rollers 107, 108. Accordingly, this may cause the occurrence of slack in the sheets 103, 104 according to the manner of rotating the handle 115 by a user. If a mechanism of preventing backward rotation of the rollers 107, 108 is provided between the handle 115 and the rollers 107, 108, the sheets 103, 104 unreeled from the upper and lower rolls 105, 106 could be temporarily made tense, but not kept as stretched. This also would result in the occurrence of slack in the sheets 103, 104.
Such the slack in the sheets 103, 104 causes a jamming of the medium 101 and wrinkles in the same when laminated, thus resulting in a problem that the medium 101 can not be aesthetically laminated.
It is also conceivable that, every time when the medium 101 is laminated with the sheets 103, 104 to produce a laminate 109, the sheets 103, 104 are fed first by a predetermined length in order to remove the slack generated in the sheets 103, 104. This case may cause a wasteful consumption of the sheets 103, 104 and an increase in production cost of the laminate 109.
Furthermore, when the above-mentioned laminating apparatus 100 is used to produce a desired laminate 109, the medium or paper 101 placed on the feed tray 102 and the guide plate 112 is inserted to the nip position between the rollers 107, 108, and the handle 115 is rotated by the corresponding turns to the length in an Y-axis direction of the medium 101. By the nipping force of the rollers 107, 108, the non-adhesive sheet 103 and the adhesive sheet 104 are adhesively placed over the medium 101. Then, the lateral cutter blade 110 is made to scan the laminate 109 in the X-axis direction to provide the desired laminate 109. As mentioned above, a user should manually operate the apparatus 100 to produce the laminate 109 while confirming all of the producing steps. This gives extremely large labors and loads to the user.
In particular, in the case where the medium 101 is shorter in the extreme in the X-axis length than that of the sheets 103, 104, a user must cut later with scissors or a cutter the sheets 103, 104 that lie over the edge of the medium 101 formed as a laminate 109. Such the labors and loads exerted on the user are very serious problems.